Kings Kids

We are so incredibly blessed and thankful to have a children’s choir here at Hillcrest. This is only possible through the hard work and dedication of core volunteers. Sheila Reinheller and Eva (Sheila’s granddaughter) take the lead with support from Michelle, Alexis (and Davis), myself, and parent volunteers who help with administration, organization, tech and details. By all working together we were once again able to have an amazing year of ministry. We are coming to realize that this may be the only kids church choir in the area and just how grateful we are to have it. For this reason, there are even kids from the community and other churches wanting to join the Kings Kids.

Our goal with the children’s choir is to teach kids from a young age how important it is to worship; to give thanks to God in all circumstances. We want the times that the kids are involved to be more than a performance or a special number, but to be a time of young believers leading our church in a time of worship! We believe that there are life-long lessons being learned, and that these kids will be the future worship leaders in our church. Our desire is that they learn just how amazing God is, and who they are in Him.

The Kings Kids often are involved in special Sundays like Palm Sunday, Easter, and Mother’s Day. They will spend many weeks leading up to these Sundays preparing songs to encourage and lead the congregation with. But, the main event for the Kings Kids was the annual Christmas play. With weeks and weeks of preparation of sets/stage design, technical components, choreography, memorized lines and musical practice over 40 kids performed the musical “Camel Lot”, in which we hear the story of the first Christmas from a fresh perspective. The performance was on the first weekend in December with hundreds of people experiencing the passion of the children and the message of Jesus over two nights. There were cookies and hot chocolate to follow and proud parents, excited kids, families and the community had an amazing time of fellowship so fitting for the season.

When the Kings Kids sing on Sunday mornings they join in with the congregation for our typical worship time. It is so encouraging and life-giving to hear them sing out so loudly in worship. It changes the atmosphere in the room and everyone in the room begins to sing and praise with more energy and volume. Not only are these kids future leaders, they are leading us right now.

Please continue to pray for these young leaders. I am so excited to see what more God has in store for them!

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Sunday Mornings

Twenty-twenty-four was a year of thanksgiving, experiencing God’s faithfulness, continuing to grow in freedom in worship, and some very sweet moments that we experienced worshipping our good God.

God’s been so faithful to continue to provide the people, skills and resources to lead our church in worship. We’ve had some new team members join us from other churches, cities and countries. Often times we feel like we are equipping and raising up leaders who move onto other opportunities. Which is amazing! I am honoured to be a part of the Kingdom in that way. At the same time, it is such a blessing to have volunteers show up who have been trained and equipped at the church that they grew up in elsewhere. As Hillcrest continues to grow and change into what God has for us, that includes new people coming to us with a desire to serve Him and the church. I have been so encouraged to meet new people to the church who have a desire to lead God’s people in worship.

Sunday Singers is when we invite a group of singers to join in with the typical worship team. We often have additional rehearsals for these Sundays. It’s been great to get to know some people who are not involved on a regular basis. I get to teach and show what it means to use our voices and songs to give God praise. We talk about technicalities, but we also learn about the heart of worship. I find that these Sundays have so much life! Having the extra singers inspires the congregation to join in all the more. We’ve had up to thirty singers with us.

We continue to meet on Thursday evenings for rehearsal, including prayer, a book study and discussion. Thursday nights are a favourite part of my job. I love the small group feel of our bands. I love praying and sharing together. I love teaching and learning about worship together. And I love making music and worshipping God. We continue to grow and learn in our understanding of what worshipping in Spirit and Truth looks like through book studies. This past year we continued in the book “Keys to Becoming an Effective Worship Leader” by Tom Kraeuter. Some interesting topics as of late have been; caring for the members of your worship team, understanding the power of music, loyalty to leadership, and spiritually preparing to lead.

Last year we developed a dedicated prayer team for the worship arts/tech ministry under the guidance of Pastor Steve. Once a month we will send out on email to our prayer team about up and coming challenges and items of thanksgiving. It is so amazing to know that we are covered in prayer on a regular basis. If you would like these updates please let us know.

Our goal remains to use music and technology to lead and facilitate an atmosphere of attention to and affection for God.

Thank you so so much for your prayers as we do our best to continue to chase after what God has for us. If you’d like more info on anything worship related or would like to get involved, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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Youth Worship

We had such an amazing year with worship at youth group!

One of the biggest changes we had was the addition of Davis Pomrenke to our youth worship team. Davis is on staff with the tech department, but also has an amazing heart for worship, music, and youth. We thought it would be a great fit for him to help with the youth bands on a more regular basis. He agreed to some part time hours and it has been so good for us!

Davis has brought some fresh vision and new ideas to our youth worship program. One of these new ideas is inviting more seasoned worship leaders from around town to come and lead worship with and for the youth on Tuesday nights. They share their story of how God called them into worship leading, how He molded and shaped them into the worship leader that they now are. It’s so awesome to hear how they got started, for a lot of them it was at youth group, and it inspires our youth to dive in and get involved.

Another concept that we’ve had a bit more time for is steady recruitment and on-boarding of youth/young adults into the bands. Davis is one of the instructors at RL Music & Worship Academy, and we’ve began a sort of informal partnership with this organization. If a youth has an interest in serving in the area of music and worship, but has no skills yet, we can point them in the right direction. We now have a more clear path of steps that they can take.

With the help of Davis, key volunteers like Denver Knodel, Karalee Friesen, and Rhea Nayak will setup, have a prayer time with the youth band, lead rehearsals, and lead worship at Tuesday night youth. I continue to help with the administrative side of things like; making sure resources are there for preparation, guiding and mentoring Davis and the worship leaders, and maintaining the equipment. Levi is there each Tuesday helping with the technical needs.

We have 2 full-ish worship teams on rotation, and some more acoustic style smaller teams. There have been some awesome new volunteers that have joined this year. They are in the older youth to young adult age range. It has been an amazing year of growth where both the youth and the band leading get to grow and learn about what it means to worship the one true God. There is a new depth! It is not just “let’s sing our three songs and move on”, but experiencing the things of God in a new way. The worship leaders are leading the youth into the spirit of worship and the youth are responding!

There are a few more special times of worship throughout the year including times of worship at the weekend youth retreat, and a morning that the youth team led on Sunday morning! I know this was a highlight for the youth who participated. They were so excited and it sparked a new interest and passion to serve in that way. It was also cool to see how the congregation responded to their leadership. The seniors were especially supportive and encouraging towards them. So cool!

We would love to get more young people involved in worship! It is an awesome chance to serve and grow together, to learn some skills, and most importantly to give God the glory that He deserves.

If you know of any young people who might like to get involved, let me know!

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